18. Moving Slowly

Probably my biggest learning this year — progress happens slowly.

I toyed with the concept of ‘monster days’ (doing a ridiculous number of things in one day or pursuing one thing to an extreme degree) for quite some time now, but I found that I hardly ever manage to have two consecutive monster days, leave alone five in a week. What’s worse, keeping the possibility of a monster day open doesn’t push me to resolve the biggest hindrance I face — trying to do too many things. I am now instead going the other way, where I limit my number of active hours a day and push myself to cut down on all but the most important things. I find that I am more productive this way.

This is where ‘slow progress’ comes in. Things like ‘going to the gym’, ‘praying’, etc. found their way into my schedule, not by me wanting to do it to an excessive degree in any one day, but by limiting to 20 minutes of gym and 5 minutes of praying a day. After a few days, going to the gym started feeling normal, and I’ve pushed the 20 minutes out to 30 minutes now, and it doesn’t feel like I’m pushing myself.

I’m going to try to remember this in the future when I’m trying to bring about lasting change: It’s all about lowering the entry barriers to start off, and just keep doing it (without worrying about quality much) for a few days, and eventually the intensity will increase by itself.

Do you help or keep? Reputation and relationships vs. Knowledge

Say that you’re the only person in the city who knows how to ride a bicycle. The other kids want to learn, and you know that they will have a lot of fun riding bicycles once they learn. Do you teach them or do you enjoy the privilege of ‘being the only one who knows how to ride a bike’? Remember, if you teach a few kids, the knowledge may spread, and eventually everyone in the city will know how to ride a bike. The streets will be more crowded, and you won’t be special anymore.

The problem is that too many people adopt that mindset and choose to have knowledge terminate with them. The fear of losing ‘specialty’ outweighs the pleasure of teaching someone else a skill that you have.

I have long ago made up my mind about this: I will teach others everything I know, provided they are keen to learn. I will be unhesitant even to give up the things that I’ve worked hardest at, such as curating my reading list.

Doing this enables two things:

  1. It gives me the satisfaction of enriching someone else’s life
  2. It gives me a strong reputation of someone who is unselfish
  3. It pushes me to find new things to learn to remain special

Don’t rest on your laurels. Share what you have, and then go try to get some more.

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Finding Satisfaction

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Chronicle of a life spent figuring out what life is about.

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